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Listen to Wikipedia edits in real-time. Bells are additions, strings are subtractions. Pitch is the size of the edit. One can listen to the edits in various languages too: Japanese | Swedish | German | a mix of various languages. Wikidata as well. It was based on Listen to Bitcoin. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 11:28 PM PST - 30 comments

Mega Dashboards and Instrument Panels is part two of a collection of interesting and mind-boggling arrays of dials and switches. Part one, previously.
posted by Room 641-A at 8:50 PM PST - 34 comments

How one Twitter user got famous by allegedly stealing comedians’ tweets. Prominent Twitterer Sammy Rhodes has been caught plagiarizing so many tweets that a dedicated Tumblr exists to track them all. The wonderful Mr. Destructo chimes in with his own take.
posted by Rory Marinich at 8:44 PM PST - 66 comments

The Dutch Army Bicycle Band. Does exactly what it says on the tin (helmet).
posted by unSane at 7:43 PM PST - 17 comments

What, really, is a wolf-dog?? Wolf-dogs already blur the line between dog and wolf - BUT things get really muddy if dogs are proven to have evolved themselves : "The evolutionarily correct way to state all this is that human beings, with their campfires and garbage heaps and hunting practices, but above all with their social interactions, represented an ecological niche ripe for exploitation by wolves."
posted by huckhound at 6:02 PM PST - 36 comments

Welcome to the real world, my dear Battle Penguin. [more inside]
posted by cashman at 4:13 PM PST - 11 comments

Theatre and film composer and GLAAD award winner Damon Intrabartolo has died at the age of 39. Intrabartolo is best known for the cult off-Broadway musical bare: a pop opera, the modern day Romeo and Juliet story of two boys who fall in love at a Catholic high school. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 4:12 PM PST - 8 comments

Next weekend, The Showroom, an arthouse movie theater in Asbury Park, New Jersey, presents Bruce Noir — a screening and discussion series on film noir and its influence on the life and music of Bruce Springsteen. The series will be hosted by crime novelist Wallace Stroby (Kings of Midnight), who once loaned Springsteen a DVD copy of Two-Lane Blacktop, and will include appearances by Springsteen biographer Peter Ames Carlin (Bruce) via Skype and Jersey Noir photographer Mark Krajnak. The films being screened are Gun Crazy, Badlands, Out of the Past, Atlantic City, and Thunder Road. (Not screening is Woody Allen's Stardust Memories. It's not a noir, but as the story goes, a fan spotted him alone at a screening of that film and eventually asked him to come home and have dinner with him and his mother. Springsteen agreed, making him not just a world-class rock-and-roller but also an A+ film buff in the eyes of many admirers.)
posted by Mothlight at 3:12 PM PST - 9 comments

Mari Kalkun is an Estonian folk singer. If, after those words, you are still reading, you'll probably like her. [more inside]
posted by lapsangsouchong at 2:29 PM PST - 14 comments

Now it's time for America's new favorite game: Hot Dogs or Legs? (single-serving Tumblr, with mustard and relish.)
posted by Strange Interlude at 2:29 PM PST - 39 comments

Chris Hedges on Journalism, truth, and why he was fired from the New York Times: "Great reporters care about truth more than they do about news".
posted by four panels at 2:09 PM PST - 31 comments

A slime mould expresses its emotions through a humming robotic face. [more inside]
posted by codacorolla at 1:53 PM PST - 20 comments

Unique Pieces -- Sculpture materials: metal (copper, bronze, brass, steel, stainless steel), wood. Assembly: welding, rivets, screws. Metal shapping: hammering, rolling, cold rolling.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:45 PM PST - 7 comments

Glenn Greenwald's partner was detained at Heathrow airport for nine hours, his mobile phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and games consoles confiscated. Glenn Greenwald calls it a failed attempt at intimidation. "...to start detaining the family members and loved ones of journalists is simply despotic. Even the Mafia had ethical rules against targeting the family members..."
posted by dabitch at 12:05 PM PST - 527 comments

"To launch a science-fiction anthology series is to dare comparisons with The Twilight Zone. Happily, Welcome to Paradox is not unworthy to be mentioned in the same sentence as Rod Serling's classic show. The weekly dramas, all based on short stories, are set in Betaville [a nod to Jean-Luc Godard's 1965 dystopian sci-fi/noir film, Alphaville], a future city filled with ultrahigh technology and perennial human unhappiness.... Bottom Line: Makes the future look intriguing." The Sci-Fi channel only produced 13 episodes (archived view of their site; ep list on Wikipedia), letting the series end with one season. The show was only released on DVD in Australia, which now seems to be out of print. But fear not! You can watch the episodes on YouTube in a convenient playlist, or with separate episodes linked below the fold. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:48 AM PST - 6 comments

Scientists first discovered invisible gamma-ray flashes in Earth's atmosphere in 1991. This year, the radiation burst, known as dark lightning, was discovered to be linked to regular lightning flashes. Will you get zapped by dark lightning when flying through a thunder cloud? A single burst can give an airline passenger a lifetime's safe dose of ionizing radiation. But it is rare enough that, for now, the risk is thought to be minimal. The US Naval Research Laboratory is rigging balloons and aircraft to further study the radiation burst threat.
posted by eye of newt at 11:41 AM PST - 20 comments

The Castle That Jack Built — by Emily Gilman, a finalist for the short story category of the 2013 World Fantasy Awards. (via)
posted by nangar at 11:30 AM PST - 5 comments

A Black Hole Mystery Wrapped in a Firewall Paradox - "A paradox around matter leaking from black holes puts into question various scientific axioms: Either information can be lost; Einstein's principle of equivalence is wrong; or quantum field theory needs fixing." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 11:11 AM PST - 39 comments

Dial a Trade (link to charming You Tube documentary) is an AM version of a flea market on KURM out of Rogers, Arkansas. You might be able to listen to it occasionally on this Tunein station.
posted by PHINC at 10:14 AM PST - 21 comments

Pere Ubu, famed avant-garde rock band, has run into some visa issues in preparing for their upcoming US tour... [more inside]
posted by SansPoint at 9:07 AM PST - 65 comments

Artist Nobutaka Aozaki is creating a map of Manhattan made up entirely of hand-drawn maps given to him by strangers, which he solicits by asking for directions. The project, called From Here to There, is ongoing, and currently the main map is roughly 3' by 10'.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:03 AM PST - 8 comments

A brother in trouble. Author John Niven reflects on the suicide of his brother.
posted by ClanvidHorse at 7:41 AM PST - 19 comments

Paperscape is a searchable 2-dimensional visualization of the 800,000+ scientific papers (mostly in physics and math) on the arXiv preprint server.
posted by escabeche at 4:33 AM PST - 20 comments

Last week the NPR Ombudsman made a series of posts about problems with the investigation and framing of a 2011 story on foster care among Native American children in South Dakota. [more inside]
posted by gubenuj at 1:44 AM PST - 14 comments